


Piece of Cake, Easy as Pie

by FireflySong



Series: Pride Month Writing Prompt Challenge 2020 [26]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Baking, Best Friends, Birthday Cake, Gen, Male Friendship, josh actually putting his baking chops to use this time, just the wholesomeness of friends making a birthday cake for their other friend, no suicide cookies this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24993013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflySong/pseuds/FireflySong
Summary: Josh just wants to bake a cake. Really. But Chris is freaking out way too much over it.Written for Day 26: Birthday of the Pride Month Writing Prompt Challenge over on tumblr.
Relationships: Chris Hartley & Josh Washington
Series: Pride Month Writing Prompt Challenge 2020 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770988
Kudos: 8





	Piece of Cake, Easy as Pie

**Author's Note:**

> realized that i dont write enough of the original trash duo just being friends and hanging out without having ash there as a buffer. so i tried to fix that. now that were getting close to the end of the prompts though, my brain is turning to mush and this fic is probably making it pretty obvious.
> 
> you can find me on tumbler at love-fireflysong if you feel so inclined!

“Are you absolutely sure that we have everything we need?”

From where Josh was standing next to the counter and unloading their grocery bag, he rolled his eyes. Hard. Not that Chris could see him. “For the goddamn billionth time, YES. I am sure we have everything.”

“But—”

“I have been doing this for years. Sam and I have been making Hannah and Beth’s birthday cakes every year since I was 10. We have got this.”

“I know that. It’s just that, well...”

Josh rubbed irritably at the bridge of his nose, letting out a just as irritable sigh. “I get it, Chris. I really do. This is your first time really making something that isn’t instant noodles.”

As he brought out the package of triple chocolate cake mix, he could hear Chris sputter indignantly behind him. “I know how to cook, dude! And I’ve made like cookies and shit before.”

“Yeah, with your mom.”

Josh could hear the telltale sound of the fridge behind him being opened and closed, followed by the sharp hiss of the seal on a bottle of pop being broken. He stuck out a hand behind him, and after a short time and groan, felt Chris putting said bottle of pop in his hand before going back into the fridge.

“So what if it was with her? I don’t see what’s that got to do with anything.”

“It means that you’ve been given the easy jobs. Stuff like pouring the chocolate chips in, or taste-testing the cookies when they’re done. Baby shit. You’ve never truly baked until you’ve accidentally added a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar.”

Chris sputtered again, though this time it was from choking on the bottle of pop he had been drinking. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually done something that stupid.”

Josh let the moment build, taking a sip from his bottle of coke and placing it on the counter nearby. “I plead the fifth.”

“Oh god, we’re gonna kill Ash aren’t we?”

“Once again, been doing this shit since I was ten. And my sisters are still alive.”

Chris gave a snort and as he walked over to finally help Josh empty their bag of cake supplies, holding up the jar of vanilla buttercream icing to his face. “Yeah, probably cause Sam’s been helping you. And I still don’t understand why we have to make the cake at your place.”

“Because,” Josh began, sighing simply because he had explained this before to Chris as he took the icing from him. Had explained it to him many, many times in fact. “If we do it at your place, then your mom will one hundred percent take over for us. I love your mom. She’s a _fantastic_ lady. The only reason I’m still alive today is because she taught me how to cook, cause my parents sure as hell weren’t home enough to do that. But she can get super controlling in the kitchen. And once she realizes that we’re baking a cake, that’s it. It’s not us baking a cake anymore, it’s her.

“And need I remind you, you’re the one that was insistent that we make the cake ourselves.”

The face that Chris made at that was one that Josh recognized instantly. It was the face of his best friend knowing that Josh was right, but hating that he couldn’t argue against him anyway. It was one of Josh’s favourite faces. Right after the face he and Ash had made after biting into those cookies he had made specially for Truth or Dare that one night. Oh, those had been _glorious_. He had pictures somewhere, planned on getting them professionally framed at some point. Neither of them had trusted anything he made for months afterward, but it had been worth it. _So_ worth it.

“Alright, fine. Just, let me make sure that we got everything—”

“Jesus Christ on a cracker, Chris! We have everything, I swear!”

The look on Chris’s face was so unimpressed that Josh could have sworn that it was Ash staring at him in the kitchen instead. “Dude, Ash and I trust you in a kitchen—supervised!" Chris felt the need to apparently clarify to Josh's amusement, "but there is no way in hell that either of us trust you with a grocery list. We sent you out to by a couple of packages of Jello once, and you came back with boxes of pudding.”

Josh put up a finger in outrage. “Okay, so not my fault. I mean, why the hell does both pudding and Jello say Jello on it? How was I supposed to tell the difference?”

“By looking at the pictures on the box, dude! Ignoring the fact that Jello looks totally different from pudding, we sent you specifically for lime Jello, so you would have had to looked at the boxes to find the flavor. The fact that you came back with vanilla pudding instead means that you had literally just grabbed the first box you saw!” 

“Yeah, well that was just the once—”

“Nope! I have more examples! Loads more! What about the time you came back with cocoa powder instead of hot chocolate mix, or when you came back with boxed oatmeal instead of oats? Or—”

“Fine, it get it Cochise. Just read your stupid shopping list already.”

Pleased to have won the argument at hand, Chris pulled up the shopping list he had written on his phone.

“Alright, so we needed to buy cake mix, icing, candles, and a different colour icing for the words.”

“Yeah, and we had to spend hours looking at the different colors because you were too picky and couldn’t decide.”

“It wasn’t hours—”

“Hours, Chris! Actual hours!”

“Twenty minutes, man! It was only twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes that _felt like_ twenty hours until you finally agreed with me that we should just grab Ash's favourite colour.” Josh grabbed the box of cake mix and ripped the top open. “Let’s just get this over with. Turn on the oven to 350° for me will you?”

Josh ignored Chris grumbling as he walked towards the oven behind them, and instead started to dig around one of the lower cupboards for a mixing bowl and grabbed a whisk from out of the drawer. He dumped the package of cake mix into a bowl and moved to grab a couple of cake pans and oil. “Oh, and get me the milk and three eggs from the fridge while you’re over there.”

“Oh, shit.”

Well, that certainly didn’t sound promising. Josh turned to look over his shoulder from where he was half crawling into a cupboard of pans. “What? Don’t tell me you broke my oven, man.”

“No! God, of course not. It’s just that, well, there’s no eggs in the fridge. Or milk.”

Josh narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What do you _mean_ there’s no eggs or milk? You haven’t even looked in the fridge yet!”

Chris raised his hand holding the bottle of coke. “I didn’t see any milk or eggs when I went in the fridge for the pop.”

“Well, then you just didn’t look hard enough. Hannah and Beth went grocery shopping with Sam just the other day. We should have full carton of milk and eggs still.”

“Dude, I swear to fucking god, there was no milk or eggs in there.”

Refusing to believe Chris, Josh walked over to the fridge and opened it, only to _not_ see the carton of eggs or the jug of milk as he had been promised. What he did see though, was a large bowl of what looked like egg salad and another bowl of chocolate pudding. And a note attached to them that proclaimed them to be for when Beth’s swim meet ended in another hour and ‘don’t you dare touch them Josh, I will kill you if even one spoonful is missing’.

Slowly, Josh closed the fridge door and started to rhythmically smash his forehead lightly into the metal door. “Get your keys, Cochise. We’re going back to the grocery store.”

Behind him, Chris picked up the discarded box of cake mix and read the back of it. “I mean, we don’t have to use milk, we can use water instead.”

“No, just. Just no, dude. I will kick you out of my kitchen if you even try to use water in my cake.”


End file.
